I have heard that a good way to move a trip hammer is to hire a guy with a wrecker truck to do it.
You know, the kind of truck that tows your car if you park on the wrong side of the street in big cities.
Usually I handle my hammers by myself and have used an engine hoist successfully when I couldn't get
a line on a farm tractor with a big enough loader, but it was not a fun thing to do. But not all engine hoists
are created equal and you have to keep the boom short!!!!
One reason to handle them alone is that, if something goes wrong, there's only one brain telling one set of feet which way to
go and how fast and far. And, if that brain is wrong, no one else gets hurt.
You might also simply locate a rigging company to do it. I once hired a local guy to unload and position my 3500
pound surface grinder with the biggest skid steer loader that I have ever seen and he had the rear end of that think floating in the air at times.
That is not a good thing.
Sometimes it is good to call in the pros. A mistake can be very costly with something of this size and top-heavy nature.
I could name a couple of guys who tipped them over. After such an event, a couple hundred dollars saved has a hollow sound.
Make sure you know what your new hammer weighs. For exmple: A 50 pound little giant weighs 1600 pounds without a motor, IIRC.
Many farm tractors do okay with up to about a ton, but not much more.
FWIW, I use THREE pieces of 1 1/4" water pipe (that's about 1 3/4" diameter) as rollers under the machine to move it around on a concrete surface.
They need to be about a foot longer than the machine is wide.
This larger diameter roller is more forgiving than smaller rods on an uneven floor, or in case of a pebble. Two of the
rollers are always under the machine and the third one is added when the "rear" roller is about to come loose. Also, as you
know, you change the direction in which the machine rolls across the floor by kicking the "front" roller toward the direction
you want to go.
Or, as you add that third roller under the front of the hammer, place it at the leading edge of the hammer at the angle needed.
I know this is probably more work than most people would want to do, but when I moved my first (50lb) hammer into my shop,
I got it into place on the pipes, as mentioned above and then had to deal with getting the pipes out from under it and
eventually GLUING it to the floor on a half inch thick conveyor belt pad.
So, I checked the size of the mounting holes in the base and found they were just right for a 7/8-9 tap.
I tapped the holes and put long threaded bolts into them. I put penny on the floor under each bolt to act as a bearing
surface and so I wouldn't powder the concrete or deform the end of the bolt. I screwed the bolts IN to raise the hammer
off the pipes, then removed them. In my case, I cut up a piece of the conveyor belting to exactly fit the base, cut it
in 3 pieces to slide it under the hammer, added liberal amounts of silicone seal to both surfaces and let the hammer
down by unscrewing the bolts. That was in 1988 and it's still there.
See the weights of Little Giant Hammers here for comparison:
Little Giant Hammer "Helpful Documents" Page
I had a bobcat lift mine into the truck bed at the farm where I got it. Once in my shop I used a 1 ton chainfall
attached to main door header to lift it to the ground. I then used an engine hoist to move it around the shop. Pinch
bar under the engine hoist moved it very slowly but under control. Mine was only a 25# little giant (700 pounds?)
I was able to do it all by myself, except for the bobcat part. Good luck and remember slowly, slowly and very low to ground.
Larry
Note from Pete: Engine hoist is not a good idea on a non-concrete floor. Don't ask me how I know!!!!
If the bottom of the hammer is flat, 1" long pieces of 1/4" rod make great rollers for moving it around the shop floor.
On the road, are you moving it vertically or on it's side? In either case, 3 ton hoist attached to the bed of a truck
will pick it up just high enough to get a trailer under it. You'll have to block under the hoist so the suspension doesn't
sag too much. If you have a trailer that tilts, and the hammer is on it's side, you can use a come-along and straps to slide
it off the trailer.
Marty
My dad and I move our power hammers quite a bit. It was at the fall conference last year.
We roll it about the shop on 1" tubing. Then pick it up with a tractor, sliding the base directly into the bucket.
We also chain it to the bucket as close to the tractor as it will go. We lift it only as high as it needs to go to move
it from one place to the next. When putting it on the truck - lifting to the correct height is the last thing we do.
Then we roll it out on the same pieces of tubing. We strap it standing up with a minimum of two, with at least one strap
making a wrap around a solid part of the hammer.
I have asked a local farmer to help with the move before and had no issues. Of course my hammer isn't as heavy as what you are moving.
Tell them what it weighs or as close as you can when you ask. If they can't pick it up you're not out anything.
Good luck
Jesse